Fifty minutes into the torture session, Anna pleaded with her guards to stop. She just couldn’t take it anymore. The so called new torture technique was unbearable. Even the Pacquiao-Mayweather bum fight had been more interesting than this ‘session’. The insane new technique was an assault on her senses and an insult to the long line of Great Russian torturers.
Over the years, Russian torture techniques had evolved beyond the cutting off of pinkies and testies. Plus these days, it was getting harder to get people to clean up the remnants of these sessions. Those Tajiks and Uzbeks had suddenly gotten ‘better offers’ where they could ‘set their own schedules’ and instead of just cleaning up, were invited to get ‘intimately involved’. The FSB blamed it on globalization.
So the Russians had pivoted to drugs. Synthetic reliable drugs. The latest statistics from the FSB suggested that, on an average, a torture session utilizing Russian methods improved the happiness of ‘victims’ for as long as six months. This translated into improvements in their productivity, family life, job performance (even if anti-Russian) and a lowered blood pressure. When the effects wore off, the plunge in wellbeing motivated over a third of the former ‘victims’ to come back for another confession. In contrast G-Bay had a return rate of like 0.01%.
The drug induced, painless and practically side-effect free interrogation had turned out to be a snooze. After the first 5 ml, Otto was singing like a canary.
Apparently, Otto’s dad the scientist Martin Fuchs had lead Hitler’s VW program. It was some sort of a plan B, wherein the Beetles would destroy the world one cramped leg at a time. In the last days of the Great Patriotic War, General Rokossovsky had captured their labs and research facility located north east of Berlin. After a few tense hours old Roko under Herr Stalin’s orders had the scientists and their families hauled back to Moscow.
Herr Stalin had looked at their Beetle design and felt it was completely gay. He had then forced the entire VW team into a secret bunker under the Kremlin and ordered them to work on an ultimate doomsday weapon. It was the fall of 1945 and nukes were already so passé.
Stalin’s order was simple: “Prototype or Purge.”
Being Stalin’s ultimate secret, with his death, all knowledge of the secret VW team had been lost.
And now after almost seven decades this ultimate doomsday weapon was ready. Apparently.
Was the prototype ready? No, the weapon itself was ready.
What was the weapon? Otto wouldn’t answer that.
What was its potential? Otto wouldn’t answer that either.
Who was running the program now? One of the other scientists’ sons, Mueller.
Can the Russian president use this mystery weapon? Not yet.
And why the HELL not? The President had to go down with Otto into the bunker.
Anna Petrova was convinced that these scientists craved some sort of recognition, a pat on the back. Perhaps medals.
But why weren’t their torture drugs cracking Otto…? Apparently Otto’s gang of scientists had developed a counter-torture drug, which made Otto forget his life temporarily. Other than a very small subset of scenarios and topics, he was a blank slate. After that Brezhnev incident, the scientists didn’t take any chances.
Anna Petrova and her guards extracted all this within thirty minutes. With nothing left to do, the disappointed Anna allowed Otto to describe this encounter with Brezhnev.
Otto Fuchs’s brother, Karl Fuchs had made the previous and only visit to the Kremlin through the fireplace. It had been at the height of the Brezhnev stagflation in 1982. That was also the year, West Germany had made it to the FIFA World Cup finals. Three nights before the final, Stalin’s secret ‘community’ under the fireplace had decided to request a trip to Madrid to see the game. After all, they had a functioning prototype of ‘the weapon’ and were just a decade away from deployment.
A terrified Brezhnev had called in his KGB guards and tortured the man to death. The man’s tales were so tall, that at one point, the KGB contemplated sending Karl to some seaside resort in Sochi. Brezhnev wanted none of it.
Brezhnev had then sent the KGB under the Kremlin to find this freaky cult, just to make sure. The KGB, assuming that the guy was nuts, had half assed the search. They found neither weapons nor suspects.
Still unsettled, Brezhnev (btw who could blame him) had presumed it was a western conspiracy to break the Berlin Wall and reunite Germany. He ordered a GRU squad to fly into Madrid and recalibrate the West German team hotel’s air conditioning system.
A bone cold W Germany had lost the World Cup 3 – 1 to Italy.
After an hour Mika gave up. “Madam I think you should purge him.”
“I suppose,” sighed the President.
“But that Brezhnev bit was pretty odd and yet, quite detailed. Maybe we could check up on old KGB archives… to see if he is telling the truth?” suggested Vlad half-heartedly.
“And West Germany did lose to Italy that year,” added another guard.
The President made up her mind. “Nah. Forget it. I got a better idea.”
Chapter 9
Fangchun Observation Tower, China
“You sure… this… whatever it is that you have planned is our best approach?” queried the Chinese Premier.
“Trust me. My analysts know what they are doing,” assured Hu Gong, the head of Chinese Intelligence.
“Ok, explain to me again, why I’m here on this God forsaken tower on a Sunday, instead of sipping green tea with my family?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Can’t believe I let you drag me here,” Premier Xiannian shook his head.
“Let me explain…” said the Hu Gong.
Premier Xiannian and his intelligence chief Hu Gong stood on the observation deck of the new Fangchun Tower. Located on the tongue of the tri-border area with Russia, it was a typical Chinese tower, with sweet curves and sharp edges.
This tongue of Chinese land was wedged between the Tumen River to the west and the Trans-Siberian railway to the east. Some Yale returned twerp, son of a party official, had done a SWOT analysis and concluded that a tower in this forsaken place had a huge potential for tourism. Ten years and counting, the crowds had never showed up while that twerp had returned to Yale for an MBA.
The Fangchun Tower wasn’t even that tall, as the Russians had objected to anything over 100ft. Something about being in the line of sight of their ICBM silo. Boo freakin hoo.
“I am still waiting…”
Hu Gong began, “Ya ok. So the Russians hit our trains and damaged several of our factories. Right?
“Right.”
“The Japanese put them to it.”
“I thought it was the Germans…”
“Oh yeah right, Japan and Germany. Both. The question is why?”
“Yes, because of the whole IP theft allegations, UN voting… Hu I know this part quite well.”
“Yeah and now our own high speed rail manufacturing program is in danger… or at least delayed…”
“Come on…Hu, get to the point,” said the Premier as he trained his high power binoculars on a freight train chugging along the Trans-Siberian. He wondered what was in its cargo hold.
“Yes, I’m getting to the point, Mr. Premier. Just give me a second.”
“Fast.”
The Premier felt a breeze. It smelt of sea weed. Sweet. The breeze grew stronger. Sweeter… and then unexpectedly a dick punch… a pungent disgusting odor…
“Sweet Buddha… what the hell is that smell?”